Almor STERN, son of Jacob and Millicent FLETCHER STERN, was born April 21,1854, at Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, and came to LINNWOOD Home, April 30, 1857, and grew to manhood in the Grove, residing there until October 1878. He attended the first term of school in the old LINNWOOD school house, taught by Annie ELLIS in the winter of 1859, and continuing in this school until 1870, then a term in the old Baptist church at Logan under Rev. ROCKWOOD, and was a student at Missouri Valley High School in 1871, under Samuel G. ROGERS, and in 1872, '73 and '74, under John D. HORNBY, at Magnolia High School, which ended his school days. He was elected County Auditor of this county in 1878, serving until December 31, 1883, and then forming the partnership with J. C. MILLIMAN in the Loan and Abstract of Title business which has been his work to this time, in Logan, where he became an advocate and worker for all improvements that were for the common good.

Mr. STERN married Laura A. MANN, in Blair, Nebraska, Dec. 15, 1880. Mrs. STERN was born July 6, 1854, in Washington County, New York, going with her parents to Wisconsin for some years, then to eastern Iowa and finally Missouri Valley in 1868.

Their children:
Fred W. married Katherine PHELPS
Cyrus A. married Charlotte GALLAHER
Jacob T. Jr. married Edna M. UDELL

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Samuel G. ROGERS was born April 26, 1847, near White Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier County, Va., coming to the Grove with his family in 1854, and grew to manhood on his father's farm. Attended district school at BAUGHN's, DAKAN's, and the log school at Richard BRADY's farm in which he acquired sufficient knowledge of the elementary branches to enable him to pass the teacher's examination for a second grade certificate. He began teaching in country schools when only seventeen. In the fall of 1865 he entered the preparatory department of the State University at Iowa City, where on the 14th day of October 1868, he was married to Miss Ida CATLETT, who was a student in the University.

She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 26, 1847. Mr. ROGERS was for three years, 1871-1873, principle of Missouri Valley public schools, and during 1876-1877, was County Superintendent of Schools for this county. From September 1876 to 1885, he was principle of the Logan schools, followed by one year as principle of the public schools in Liberty, Missouri, in Clay County. Subsequently to her marriage, Mrs. ROGERS taught the summer school in the DAKAN School in 1869, and two years later was a teacher in the primary department of the Missouri Valley school. In 1885-86, she was assistant to her husband in the school in Liberty, Missouri.

In September, 1886, he received appointment on certification by the civil service commission as desk clerk at $1000 per year in the Bureau of Pensions, in Washington D.C., since which time has risen by promotion from grade to grade in that bureau until for the past eight years he has held position of Chief of Division, supervising the work with from one hundred to one hundred and fifty clerks under him, at an annual salary of $2000 per year. In the year 1921, he completed his thirty-fifth year in the Bureau of Pensions, and is now retired under Act of May 20, 1920, on an annuity of $720. He has never joined church, belongs to no secret society and is an agnostic in religion, and an old fashioned Democrat in politics.

Children:
Beverly F. married Gertrude LEMON
Hattie married Rev. J. Benjamin CLAYTON

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Chloe Ann VANDERHOOF was born in the MEACHAM cabin in Harris Grove, Jan. 25, 1857. She has resided for sixty-four years in and near the Grove, with the exception of about twelve years. She received her education in the district schools and always took an active part in the social events and other entertainments that were beneficial to the neighborhood in which she lived. She was united in marriage to George HASKINS by J. L. BEEBEE at the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob VANDERHOOF, Nov. 15, 1877. Mr. HASKINS was born in Cass County, Michigan, April 10, 1852, and came to the Grove September 4, 1866, with his father, Alex HASKINS. His mother died when he was five years old. He received the common school education similar to that received by farmer's sons. He worked by the month, and rented land for a share of the crop.

After their marriage they moved to a home in Sec. 30, Union Township, and by selling this farm in 1880 built a home in SE 1/4 SE 1/4 Sec. 23, LaGrange Township. Disposing of this in 1884, they moved to a homestead near Lone Pine, Nebraska, and selling this returned and bought the former place in Sec. 23, LaGrange, in 1887. This house burned in 1894, and soon after rebuilding they sold this and bought a farm in Sec. 28, Jefferson Township, where they lived for ten years, when they sold and moved to the Wm. PETT farm in LaGrange Township. In 1909 they sold this and moved to Defiance in Shelby County, Iowa. Mrs. HASKINS becoming owner of a portion of her father's estate, they returned to the Grove in 1918, and are now living in that good old home. Mr. and Mrs. HASKINS have the honor of having been members of the Elk Grove, and Harris Grove Farmers' Clubs.

Their children:
Cora E. married G. T. VANARSDOL
Nellie M. married A. O. COOK
Virgil
Chester E. died Feb. 27, 1919
Clyde R. married Dolly B. RESSER
Jennie M. married Clay C. DINSMORE
Mary Iva
Roy

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Horace H. MCKENNEY was born in a log cabin on MCKENNEY's Prairie, Cass County, Michigan, in LaGrange Township, November 15, 1845. In the autumn of 1851, he came with his parents to western Iowa, arriving in Harrison County and the Grove, on his sixth birthday. On the first day of the journey in the city of Niles, Mich., his father bought a pair of red top boots which to him was the paramount incident of this trip as the ownership of those red top boots made walking up all the hills from Niles, Mich. to Kanesville, Iowa, a continuing pleasure. Just at the end of the journey as the wagon was crossing Harris Grove creek, the party of government surveyors were tracing the line between Section 1, in LaGrange, and Section 34, in Jefferson Townships.

In the winter of 1852 he attended the first school in the grove, taught by Jas. B. MCCURLEY. His next school was taught by Sylvia HARRIS, (Mrs. Ben F. LAPORTE), in the fall of 1853, in a vacant cabin that stood in the south edge of Elk Grove near the northwest corner of Sec 27, Jefferson Township. The remainder of his education was received in the public schools except two terms in the preparatory department of the State University at Iowa City.

In the winter of 1866-67 he taught a term of school at Whitesboro. In the winter of 1868-69 he taught a term at Dunlap, and in the summer of 1869, a term in Logan. He was elected County Superintendent of schools of this county in 1869, serving two years. In the winter of 1871 and 1872 he taught a term of school at REEDER's Mill. The intervals between the different terms of school were spent on his father's farm doing farm work. Dec. 24, 1871, he married Frances A. IDE. Rev E. G. O. GROAT solemnizing the marriage.

Miss IDE was born near Syracuse, New York, Oct. 6, 1846, and came to Omaha, Nebraska, about the year 1858, and to Harris Grove with her father in 1869. In July 1872, at the death of her father, they moved from his farm and settled up the estate. In September 1879, they took a home seeking journey to Clark County, Washington Territory, returning in November of the same year to Harris Grove and built a home in Lot 12, Sec. 3, where they lived. Mr. MCKENNEY farmed and worked at the carpenter trade. In 1897 he was elected County Treasurer and served four years.

Mrs. MCKENNEY died Nov. 26, 1906. Mr. MCKENNEY makes his home with his son, Harry, at the last homestead.

Children:
Ralph C. Died in infancy
Bessie A. married Chester ALEXANDER; W. W. FALCONER
Harry married Hattie LOSS; Myrtle SHUPING

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Thomas Hart Benton DAKAN was born in Harris Grove Oct. 24, 1854, and Dr. MCGAVREN was accoucheur. He received his education at the DAKAN School and grew to manhood on his father's farm. He was married to Hattie WILLIAMS, Oct. 28, 1877. She was born in Illinois, and came to Harris Grove in the month of March 1871. After their marriage they lived a short time with his parents, then moved to a farm on the prairie east of the Grove, where they lived until the spring of 1882, when they moved onto her father's farm, the BAUGHN-LUSK-WILLIAMS farm, where they lived until the spring of 1900, when they moved to South Dakota, returning to this county in 1908.

Mrs. DAKAN died Oct. 1901. In October 1908 he moved to Nampa, Idaho, where he was accidentally killed in a fall, Sept. 24, 1919.

Their children:
Robert C. died in California
John married Maude WEST
Mildred married John H. COX

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Frank B. MCKENNEY was born in Harris Grove, in the Wm. AUSTIN cabin, March 26, 1852, the third son of John A. and Clarissa MCKENNEY, and one of the first sons born in this county. He received his schooling in the Grove and spent the vacations in farm work. He was united in marriage to Ella E. THORPE March 12, 1879. She was born Dec. 29, 1858, in the old THORPE cabin in Jeddo. This cabin was a polling place for the first election in the county and stood near the ancient village of Jeddo.

After their marriage they farmed for a share of the crop until 1881, when they went to Neola and kept hotel a year, returning to the Grove in 1882, they lived with his mother and cared for her farm. To this marriage were born three children: Coral, Pearl, and Lloyd, all dying in infancy. The marriage was terminated by divorce.

In 1883, Frank engaged to haul a pair of Elks, with his team and wagon, touring through the south for Amos ANTRIM, a veterinarian. Somewhere in Tennessee the expedition went broke, and disposing of his team and wagon he returned to the Grove where he remained a short time, when he again went south and became a traveling salesman, and in 1888 established his home in Weston, West Virginia, where he was again married, to Mollie LISTER, a native of Virginia, where he lived until his death, August 4, 1916.

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Willis L. STERN was born at old LINNWOOD Farm in the Grove, June 11, 1860, the youngest child of Jacob and Millicent B. STERN. Has lived all his life in this county and grew to manhood while the family still lived upon the old homestead.

He early evinced the disposition to escort the young ladies around, and while less than four years of age went part way home with a neighbor girl, Rebecca MOORHEAD, who was three or four years older, and when he undertook to return home along the road through the timber he wandered off on the ELLIOT wood road and was not found until ten o'clock at night, away north in the timber, while all the men of that sparsely settled community were searching for him. Willis claims to have kept very shy of the ladies ever since. In those early days a good many cases were reported of orchards and melon patches being visited by the boys of the neighborhood, but the subject of this sketch always frowned upon such doings.

Willis was married Christmas Day of 1892, to Nellie GILCHRIST of near Dunlap, daughter of pioneers and farmers, Andrew C. and Jane GILCHRIST, and was born August 4, 1866, at Plano, Illinois.

When a young man, Willis clerked for some years for the stores in Logan and at Magnolia, bought hogs and grain for John W. STOCKER, then put in several years as deputy in county offices at the court house, and for more than thirty years has been active manager of the STERN Abstract business. He served on the Logan school board more than twenty years and as its president for twelve years. Has been chairman of the Republican County Committee for eighteen years, and is a member of the State Central Committee for Iowa, representing the Ninth Congressional District for six years. In this sketch it is proper to note that the father of Jacob T. STERN, began making weather observations for the government January 1, 1860, which he continued until his death on Nov. 8, 1892, when the mother, Millicent STERN, was appointed and continued the service as Observer until her death, Nov. 12, 1904, at which Willis or some member of his family have continued the service to this time. Glen, "Ted" and Mary Jean, in turn doing the active work and keeping the record, which is continuous since January 1, 1854, beginning before "Uncle Jacob" left Pennsylvania. We doubt if a longer service, by any one immediate family is found in the country.

Willis now has in his possession, and very highly valued, the Diaries of his father, begun in Pennsylvania, and continued until his passing in 1892. These little records of a few lines each day afford a memorandum of the coming and goings, and the doing of pioneer days in and about Harris Grove and in the last few years of Logan.

Willis' family:
Glen H. married Alice CRARY
Hilda married Harrie E. PERKINS
Millicent F. married H.F. ATKINSON
Andrew G. ("Ted")
Mary Jean
There are two grandchildren

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William B. HANER was born three miles south of Woodbine Nov. 13, 1860, remaining with his parents, James and Sarah HANER, until 19 years of age. For seven years assisting his father in the shop and store and post office at REEDER's Mill. In 1879 he went to Shelby County, and worked for one year as a farm hand, and then returned to REEDER's Mill and began farming for himself near Woodbine and Logan until 1890, when he rented what is known as the John MCCABE farm in Allen Township.

May 3, 1894, he was united in marriage to Hester M. CHAFFEE at Woodbine, Iowa. Her maiden name was PACE, and she was born in Harris Grove, May 5, 1868 and moved to Woodbine, when eight years of age, with her parents, where she attended school and grew to womanhood, and on the 24th day of October 1885 was married to Eliza CHAFFEE of Bakersfield, California, where she lived until the death of Mr. CHAFFEE in 1895.

Mr. and Mrs. HANER spent a year in Monona County, and then settled in Allen Township where they became owners of a fine farm of 230 acres. On account of his oldest son being elected in the first draft of the World War, and his failing health, they sold the farm in 1918 and bought a home in Woodbine, where Mr. HANER died on the 16th of October following.

Children:
Harry married Gladys SPANSWICK
Fannie married W. WATERS
Lester
Iva

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Margaret ORR was born near Carlton Ohio, January 4th, 1850; moved to Des Moines, Iowa with her parents in 1857 and to Florence, Nebraska in 1858, where they remained four years, then to Harris Grove.

In 1872 they moved to HARDINDALE farm ten miles east of Council Bluffs, in Keg Creek Township. She received her education in public schools. She was married to D. S. FRANK on the farm March 20th, 1878. Mr. FRANK was born near Cleveland, Ohio, in 1850, and moved to Council Bluffs in 1857.

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Charles Newton TUCKER was born in Mason County, Illinois, September 18th, 1851; with his parents came to the Grove in 1853. March 24, 1876, married to Ann Eliza NORMAN.

They lived in the Grove about two years, the moved to Missouri Valley, where they lived until the death of Mrs. TUCKER. Mr. TUCKER then moved back to the Grove with his family, remained a year and then went to Idaho, for another year, returning to Missouri Valley with his family, where October 17, 1892, he was again married to Lizzie RAINIER TUCKER. She was born in Clinton County, Iowa, December 6, 1861, and came in a covered wagon with her parents to a home in Union Township, where she spent her childhood, and at the age of 17 graduated from the Logan High School, and followed teaching for some years.

Mr. TUCKER died August 10, 1914, a victim of the grim affliction, cancer. Soon after his death Mrs. Tucker moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. She was the mother of four children.

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George H. WILKINS, a son of Thomas and Caroline WILKINS, was born in England, January 3, 1850, and came to this country with his family, and to Harris Grove, where he has since resided except four years in Council Bluffs.

He was married January 1, 1888, to Ida M. O'NEIL. This marriage was annulled. George lives in the paternal home near REEDER's Mill, where with great kindness he cared for his aged mother, many years.

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Dr. Ephraim T. MCKENNEY was born in Cass County, Michigan, February 22, 1835, migrated overland with his family to Iowa, arriving in Harris Grove the middle of November 1851. He attended the public schools as opportunity offered.

In 1855, he returned to Michigan and became an apprentice to an uncle, James BROWN, and became an expert miller. In 1858 he was married to Elizabeth ZEEK, who was born in Elkhart, Indiana, February 23, 1839. In November 1860, they came to this county, and he found employment for a time at HARDY's Mill on the Willow, then at PARK's Mill, on the Mosquito, east of Council Bluffs, then to Little Sioux, in the SCOFIELD Mill, and from there to REEDER's Mill, and then to Loveland, in the high tide of that popular pioneer mill, where he was manager. While at Loveland he began the study of medicine under George W. MCGAVREN of St. John, who was a graduate of Oberlin, Ohio. In 1871 they moved back to Harris Grove and he began the active practice of medicine and met with large success. In 1871 he was nominated for County Treasurer on the republican ticket, loosing by the narrow margin of fifteen votes. In 1872 he moved to Logan, continuing in the practice of his profession, and finally entering the Medical Department of our State University at Iowa City, and received his degree from that institution. Disposing of his practice to Dr. J. GIDDINGS he moved to Clerk County, Washington, where he remained, resuming the practice until failing health prevented. He was staying with his son, Herman, who lived in Castle Rock, Washington, at the time of his passing, which occurred the 11th of April 1897, and was buried there. Mrs. MCKENNEY passed to the better land May 29, 1921.

Their children were:
Orlando married Carrie RAINES
Clara married C.R. HART; E. H. HYERSTAY
Herman E. married Mary STAMP

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Angeline N. PERRY was born in the old PERRY home, March 31, 1857, and received her education in the rural schools. She was married to Allen B. WILSON March 20, 1878. Mr. WILSON was born in Virginia, in 1853 and came to this county in 1872. They lived on a farm in Jefferson Township, where he engaged in farming and shipping stock for many years.

They moved to Logan, where Mr. WILSON continued the farming and shipping, and also a livery business for a time.

Mr. WILSON died in 1908, and Mrs. WILSON, September 25, 1912.

Their children were:
Doris married Linzy THOMPSON
Ben A.
Wallace H.
J. Clifford married Bertha ARNOLD

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John Wesley TUCKER was born in Havana, Illinois, October 14, 1845, coming to Harris grove with his parents in 1853, where he grew to manhood, attending the public schools during the winters as was the lot of the boys of that period, for they were obliged to work on the farm during the summer seasons.

He was married to Sarah Ellen KNAUSS, December 10, 1865. She was born in Noble County, Indiana, October 24, 1845, and came to Harris Grove with the KNAUSS family. Her first school was taught by Sarah VORE in the house were Curd GOSS lived, getting the remainder of her education at the BAUGHN School. After their marriage they lived on a farm in the Grove until 1883, when they moved to Knox County, Nebraska, where they bought a farm. Mr. TUCKER died May 3, 1890.

Mrs. TUCKER sold the farm and in 1910 moved to Montello, Nevada, where she lives with her son, Orval. She owns a fine property in Ogden, Utah, and also has investments in first mortgage loans.

Their children:
Almon
Orval married Nellie CHASE
Sylvester Worth, who was a soldier in the First World War, died at Great Lakes, Illinois, and was buried at Bloomfield, Nebraska, besides his father.

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